Edge of the Vortex Read online

  Hubtar smiled at Joe while he started to pull on his jump-suit. “I have no idea. All I know is that energy defeats energy, so energy based weapons don’t work on most shields, but ballistic weapons can penetrate them. I just know what tool to use when I need to. We typically carry ballistic and energy weapons on missions. I can assure you that almost all armour deployed by Coalition forces will be impervious to those rounds, however.”

  Joe nodded.

  Once Hubtar was kitted, the pair walked back to the hangar bay and found the female navigator sitting in the ship.

  “Status” Hubtar asked.

  “Good. Jump systems, NAV all good.” Rasser replied.

  “Good. Briefing room in five.” Hubtar replied, and looked at Joe. “We need to get eyes on this system of yours.”

  Joe nodded and followed the alien towards the wall opposite of where all the ships were parked. There was a large data-screen on the wall and a table with three-dimensional projectors on it. Punching a few keys, Hubtar activated the unit bringing up a map of the Etelainen and the Pohjois. “Where is your system?” He asked.

  Joe handed him a data card, and Hubtar put it on the table and waited for the data to be projected into the air. Finding the mapping section, Hubtar used it to update the 3D map and populated it with the information about the Sol System.

  Hubtar looked at the image, and then looked over to Joe. “Your world?” He pointed to the 3rd planet from the star.

  Joe nodded. “Correct.”

  Hubtar nodded and continued to observe the image as it continued to rotate slowly in the air, simulating the actual rotation of the planets around the sun. “How old is this data?”

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay.” Hubtar looked up and watched Rasser and Sasa approach, both already dressed in their skin-tight flight suits. “How’s the ship?” He asked Sasa.

  “Ordinance being loaded now. Fuel on next. Ready to launch on time.” He replied.

  Hubtar stood upright and looked at the three sets of eyes that were on him. “The operation is a reconnaissance of this world.” He pointed at the 3D image. “Terra, aka Earth.”

  “Where is this?” Rasser asked, leaning in closer to examine the image.

  “Beyond the Reach.” Hubtar replied.

  Sasa manipulated the image, zooming in on various sections. “Since when are we jumping beyond the Reach?” She asked, looking up at Hubtar.

  Hubtar shook his head. “The Coalition has taken the system, and we are to gather all available intelligence on enemy assets in place and status on this world.” He looked at Rasser. “This is the most recent intel available on the system, the packet the human has includes data on expected rotational locations and distances and directions of all the key solar bodies.”

  “I’ve planned jumps before.” She said with confidence. “What is the system threat level?” She asked.

  “Expected to be high.” Hubtar replied.

  “Okay.” Rasser pulled the image out, then manoeuvred it to her liking. “We jump in just outside the gravitation pull of the system's star,” she pointed towards the image. “Here. Then make a run towards this world.” She pointed at Mercury. “Call it fifty-seven million kilometres.” She stood back from the image. “Hit it at half-light speed. Once we reach the planet, set down, conduct a sweep, proceed from there.”

  “Why?” Joe asked.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Rasser said in an aggressive tone. “Some bag of flesh from some backwards civilisation that has roped my ass into helping you? And you are questioning my NAV plan?”

  Hubtar put his arm out towards his navigator. “Hey, give the alien a break.”

  Rasser took a breath. “The sun should mask our signature, but it’s hot, and there is the risk of solar flares within the zone we’ll be jumping into, and yes, if I were the Coalition task force commander I’d station ships in case someone tried this move, but we’re going to jump at half-light speed, so by the time they know something has happened, we’ll be on the surface of the first planet within six minutes of jumping in, and at the speed we’ll be moving, and with our tiny signature, we’ll be near impossible to detect. Once we hit the first solar body in the system, we’ll use the magnetic pole at the top of the planet to mask our presence.” She stopped and stood up, then took a step towards Joe. “I trust you have some kind of skill, where you’re from, but shut the fuck up, and let us run this op.”

  Joe put up his hands as to offer his surrender, and took a step back.

  “Rasser, please.” Hubtar said, looking at Rasser. “Now, once we’re set, how do you want to get close to the 3rd rock?”

  Rasser rocked her head from side to side. “I need to see how things are when we get down. Ideally piggyback on someone to get closer. We have enough scramblers on the ship to cause enough trouble for whoever is out there.”

  Hubtar nodded then looked Sasa. “Weapons selection?”

  “Single medium laser in the primary pod, the rest are decoy missiles. We’re not there to fight. Something goes wrong, dump the decoys then split.”

  “Agreed.” He looked at Joe. “We don’t know what to expect until we jump in. We don’t know how good their sensors will be, what kind of defences they have in place.” He pointed to Earth. “Once we get into the system, we’ll be playing fast and loose. You’re along for the ride.”

  Joe gave the thumbs up, which got a confused look on Hubtar’s face.

  “Right. Back to the ship. We launch when ready.”

  It didn’t take long to prep the ship for the mission. The necessary fuel had been loaded onboard, and Joe had been given a helmet which would supply him with air to breath and a built-in communications unit that would allow him to hear everything while on the mission. He was also given a quick explanation of how the ejection system worked, but was informed that in the event of a critical systems failure on the ship, all four passengers would be flung out into space and that unless rescue came quickly, they’d all die once their breathable air was expended and we all asphyxiate.

  Joe tried to keep a positive energy the entire time. He knew that this was a mission that needed to happen. He was aware that Admiral Taark wouldn’t sign off on any operation without actionable intelligence, and this was the chance to get that information.

  With the green-light for launch, Joe was put into the very cramped ship. His position was in the rear of the flight compartment in a seat that was heavily reclined and built into the floor of the space. Hubtar was sat just to his front with a large section of his chair positioned over Joe’s legs. Sasa was at the front of the ship with Rasser just sat off to his right.

  Once Hubtar was satisfied that everything was in order, Sasa activated the ships mag-system and retracted the landing gear while lowering the canopy. A set of droids appeared and moved behind the ship and started slowly pushing it out of its holding spot, and towards the large hangar bay doors that were starting to open.

  As the ship reached the main travel strip, the canopy clamped down into position, casting the crew compartment into almost total darkness until the various heads-up-display systems and other flight systems illuminated the four-seater. Joe felt pressure over his entire body as an invisible force pushed him into the seat.

  “Hubtar.” Joe checked his comm unit.

  “Go.”

  “Restraints?” Joe asked.

  “Automatic. They will relax once we break orbit until we jump. Don’t worry.”

  Joe felt like he was in a coffin. The heads-up-display that was projected above his head showed an imagery stream that was showing the ship move down the hangar, four pictures from external cameras showing what was in front, behind, below and above the ship, what looked like information on their celestial location, but Joe wasn’t sure. Off to his right was information that Joe thought looked like weapons status and fuel load. He needed to learn to read Universal.

  The moment the nose of the ship reached the breach of the hangar, the two droids at the rear of
the ship cleared the thrusters, and Sasa fired up the primary engines and announced that the ship was ready to go.

  Joe listened as the trio went through final launch procedures.

  “Standish, this is Kygo 7, ready for departure.”

  An auto-response came back over the channel clearing them for departure.

  “Rasser?”

  “Nav and weapons good.” She replied.

  “Sasa?”

  “Flight is a go.”

  “Hunt?”

  “Good.” Joe replied with a smile. He was flattered he was asked.

  “Sasa, get us up to the jump-box.” Hubtar ordered.

  Joe focused his attention on the flight data and the forward facing image as the ship started to move out of the protective cover of the Standish Out-Post and into the sand swept wasteland that covered the world. After moving forward, level with the ground, the ship lifted its nose sharply and blasted away from the surface. Joe watched the flight information as the ship gained speed and altitude at a rapid rate.

  The speedometer, or what Joe suspected was the speedometer climbed rapidly towards a flashing white line which Joe suspected was the necessary escape velocity to break away from the planet’s gravitational pull. Reaching the line, the ship held the speed as it continued to race away from the surface. Joe couldn’t see out of the canopy, but the images shown on the monitors gave him a few seconds of the blue skies that stretched away in every direction, with a sand coloured surface disappearing into their rear.

  Breaking orbit, Sasa manoeuvred the ship into a jump-box and waited for authorisation from Standish Out-Post before initiating the jump.

  “Rasser. Coordinates?” Sasa asked.

  “Set in the jump computer. You should have a straight line run on Mercury as soon as we jump in.” She replied.

  “Looking good.” Hubtar said over the net. “Rasser, ready on weapons and decoys.”

  “I’m there.” She replied.

  “Right, Terran.” Hubtar said. “Let’s go check out this world of yours. Sasa, give me a half-light speed jump please.”

  “Stand-by.”

  “Standish Out Post, Kygo 7 is outbound.”

  Joe could hear the engines behind him start to grow louder. He had never done a rolling jump before, so he wasn’t sure what to expect. From what he understood, the sensation would be slightly uncomfortable.

  The pressure from the acceleration from zero to half-light speed in the space of two hundred metres, putting thousands of G’s on the ship, which dissipated it along the hull and through the use advanced magnatronic systems built into the nose of the ship. Either way, Joe felt an incredible amount of force on his body as it was pushed back and down into the reclined seat he was laying in.

  But before his brain could properly come to terms with the sudden rush of blood to his head, there was a bright flash on the monitors above his head as the ship jumped almost 1800 light years to the Sol System.

  “Sol system.” Rasser called out over the net.

  Joe shook his head lightly and looked at the monitors again. The darkness of space off Ames had been replaced by a blindingly bright light. They were inside the flames of the sun. Fuck.

  “Mercury in six. Undetected.” Rasser said, an icy calmness in her voice.

  “Sasa?” Hubtar asked.

  “All good.” Came the nonchalant reply.

  “Human?”

  “Still here.” Joe replied. He watched as one of the displays above his head was repopulated with data and telemetry from the Sol system. Planets and moons and spacecraft from the Ames system were replaced by planets he was more familiar with.

  “All celestial bodies in place.” Rasser said over the comms.

  Joe had worried that the data he had supplied wouldn’t include present locations of the planets in their rotations around the sun, but his fears had proved unfounded.

  “Rasser, contacts?” Hubtar asked. “I’m reading fifteen.”

  There was a pause. Joe looked as little red dots appeared over the top-down view of the Sol system he was looking at. Sure enough, there were only fifteen.

  “Confirmed. Fifteen enemy contacts.” She replied.

  Only fifteen? Joe was surprised that the Coalition had dropped the number that low. They must have felt confident in holding the system for some reason. The Alliance had more than fifteen ships in the system when the Coalition had jumped in with almost three-hundred ships. The fact that they had dropped that number down to fifteen gave Joe a reason for concern. Something about it didn’t seem right.

  “Three minutes to Mercury.” Rasser said over the net. “Closest contact 108 million K. Looks like a frigate near the second planet.”

  “Understood. Continue to monitor.” Hubtar replied.

  The wedge-shaped craft had made its jump into the system undetected and was now cruising towards the first planet from the sun, a dead rock that was one of four terrestrial planets in the system and not hospitable for life.

  Joe tried to follow the myriad of data that was constantly flowing onto the screens above his head. Moving his right hand up, he manipulated the image of the system and zoomed in on the blue sphere that represented Earth. There were three ships in orbit of Earth, far less than he had expected, with the rest of the fifteen ships in the system spread out evenly. It looked like they had their own designated patrol zones because as the six-minute trip to Mercury slid by, almost none of the ships moved very far from where they were when they had jumped into the system.

  Cutting across the thin atmosphere of Mercury, the ship reached the north pole, and quickly descended to the surface, lowering its landing gear until it touched down on the fridge night time surface that was almost two-hundred degrees Celsius below zero.

  “Skids down.” Sasa reported.

  “We’re in the clear. No moment towards our position.” Rasser said.

  “Understood.” There was a pause over the net for a few minutes while Hubtar contemplated the next move. “We are going to launch from here, make a run towards Terra’s moon. En-route we will launch decoys to simulate a comet. Rasser, can you programme that into the decoys?”

  “Doing it now.” She replied.

  “Calculate a trajectory that will eventually have our imaginary comet impact Terra. This should get the Coalition’s attention. Make sure the decoys self-destruct before they are able to be visually ID’d as ours. That should buy us enough time to slip into the moon in orbit over Terra, run a full scan of the planet’s surface, then make a jump out of the system.” Hubtar cut the channel.

  Silence might have descended into the cramped cockpit, but Joe could feel that all three members of the team sat in front of him were running flight plans, decoy prep, and other preparations before setting off towards Earth. Moment of truth time, he thought.

  “Ready.” Sasa said.

  “Ready.” Rasser seconded.

  “Colonel?” Hubtar asked.

  “Ready.” Joe replied.

  “Go, Sasa.”

  The ship was off the ground within a fraction of a second and racing away from the surface towards Terra. Once the ship broke Mercury orbit, Rasser came onto the net.

  “Decoys away.”

  Joe felt a slight shudder as the missiles were launched from internal weapons bays in the wings of the ship.

  “Sixty seconds until they go live.” She reported.

  “Roger.” Hubtar replied.

  Joe looked at up at the display above his head. The ship was powering away from Mercury towards the moon. In between them was a ship over Venus, and three ships in Earth orbit. It wasn’t crowded, but he knew that alien sensor technology was very advanced, and he was slightly surprised that they hadn’t been detected yet.

  “Hubtar, why haven’t they spotted us?”

  “This ship isn’t stealth, but it has a very low detection level. If we got close enough, they’d tag us, but at this speed and distance we’ll stay clean.” Came the reply.

  Joe could see the four dots t
hat represented the decoys as they streaked towards Earth at high speed. “Decoy’s live.” Rasser reported.

  It didn’t take long for Joe to realise that the Coalition was on their game. The ship that was over Venus immediately started moving out on an intercept course with the fake comet. The ships around Earth also started to move, albeit slower, towards the oncoming threat.

  “Time to Moon?” Hubtar asked.

  “Four minutes.” Came the reply from the front of the ship.

  “Time until decoy self-destruct?” Hubtar asked.

  “Three minutes.” Rasser replied.

  Joe looked at the screen again. There was going to be a minute when they were close to Earth when they’d be without the decoys, and well inside the enemy’s most guarded sector of the system. It would be tight. Well, that was at least what Joe thought.

  Several million kilometres away, the decoy missiles were streaking towards Earth at speeds exceeding half-light-speed. Propelled by hydra-fusion reactors capable of creating a micro-singularity in front of the weapon that dragged it through space at ludicrous speeds, while giving off all the necessary signs of being a rogue comet on a collision course with Terra.

  The ship was on a parallel course, and several hundred thousand kilometres to the rear of the imaginary comet, and running off to the side. Part of the wonder of the decoys was that the non-existent comet was giving off all the necessary traits of a real comet, including a tail made up of gas and dust particles which camouflaged any signature that the ship was giving off.

  “Preparing to cut away from the decoys.” Sasa said over the net.

  “Decoys off-line in ten, nine, eight, seven, six.”

  “Prepare for some G’s.”

  “Three, two, one.”

  The ship banked hard to the right at an almost ninety-degree angle, cutting towards the side of the moon at a fabulous pace. Arching away from the decoys that very subtlety cut the micro-singularity system, suddenly exposing the physical decoy to the stresses of the speed they had been accelerating at, instantly vaporised the four missiles, leaving no trace of them for the approaching Coalition warships to investigate. Their instruments would either tell them that there was no comet, and that there had been a malfunction, or that there had been a comet, but it had vanished, without a trace. Either way, there was no way for them to know what actually happened.